Food and Agriculture Events

When she finished her dissertation on migration as a response to climate change in 2003, it was one of only a handful of scholarly papers published on the topic that year, said Susana Adamo, an associate research scientist at Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network. But in the decade since, interest in climate migration has exploded – in 2012, more than 10 times as many papers were published.

Colombia’s 2011 Victims and Land Restitution Law is an historic piece of legislation that seeks to redress victims of forced displacement in rural areas and formalize land rights for those who want to return to their properties. As a mechanism of transitional justice, the Law places the victims of conflict at the center of state activity. It also provides a series of positive measures to address the historic and conflict-related discrimination that women victims have experienced when attempting to reclaim their land. Does the Law accomplish these goals and secure gender-equitable property rights for victims of violence?

On April 2, Circle of Blue and the Wilson Center present the findings of their Choke Point: India initiative, an exploration into the water-energy-food confrontations in the world’s second most populous country.

Increasingly prosperous consumers in China are consuming fewer food grains and demanding more dairy, fruits, vegetables, meat, and seafood. Speakers will discuss the major ecological and supply chain trends in the China’s seafood and pork industries.

In Lake Victoria and Lake Chilwa basins, interconnected development challenges defy sectoral boundaries, said experts at the Wilson Center on February 10. According to Deepa Pullanikkatil of Leadership for Environment and Development and Doreen Othero of the Lake Victoria Basin Commission, growing populations, shrinking resource bases, and persistent human health concerns demonstrate the need for integrated development approaches that combine population, health, and environmental (PHE) interventions. “We need different sectors working together to achieve the greater goal,” said Pullanikkatil.

This roundtable will connect federal agencies hoping to initiate or expand open innovation projects with leaders in citizen science, who are engaging the public participates in scientific research through lab and field work, crowdsourcing platforms, and online games. Opening remarks by Kumar Garg, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and keynote by Bob Perciasepe, EPA Deputy Administrator.

Sudan’s pastoralists gained infamy during the conflict in Darfur last decade, when outsiders described the violence as a result of competition between climate-stressed, semi-nomadic herders and sedentary farmers. But Sudan’s pastoralists may not be as fragile as previously thought and could even hold the key to survival for similar groups in Africa, said a panel of experts at the Wilson Center on November 13.

Global food price spikes in 2008 and again in 2011 coincided with a surge of political unrest in low- and middle-income countries. Governments and philanthropic foundations have begun redoubling efforts to resuscitate agricultural research and technology transfer, as well as to accelerate the modernization of food value chains to deliver high quality food inexpensively, faster, and in greater volumes to urban consumers. But is this enough?

The first enlargement was one of the most divisive and politically charged events in the history of the present-day European Union. French opposition to British membership meant that London had to wait more than a decade at the Community's door. Other countries, including Denmark and Ireland, whose requests for membership were tied to the coat-tails of the British applications, had to endure a similar wait. Enlarging the European Union focuses on the early history of the EU and in particular the role played by the European Commission, an institution whose aim was to gain influence over the Community's agenda and to shape its policies, including the issue of enlargement. Enlarging the European Union explores the Commission's interaction with the member states and the applicant countries between the years 1961 and 1973 and also the Commission's attempts to gain and wield influence over the first enlargement round.